Students of piano are required to learn the correct position of the hands, fingers, wrist and forearm as one of the foundation skills in learning to play the piano. Similar foundation skills are a part of learning to play other keyboard musical instruments as well. One of the problems often encountered is that students may allow their wrists to drop too low. Sometimes, this can have a flow-on effect to poor posture and fatigue, and/or wrist or tendon strain. Another problem sometimes encountered is that students may overcompensate for having their wrists too low by raising their wrists to high. This can lead to poor finger control as well as the adverse effects on posture, fatigue and tendon strain.
In this specification, unless the context indicates otherwise, the term “learning aid” is to be taken to refer to a keyboard musical instrument learning aid and such term is to be taken to be synonymous with the term “keyboard musical instrument learning aid”.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,714,220 to Sony Computer Entertainment discloses a learning aid for teaching hand placement on a variety of objects, including sporting equipment and such musical instruments as guitars, saxophones, woodwind and brass instruments (the Sony invention). However, the Sony invention is directed to the teaching of accurate placement of the fingers of the hands on the object. Moreover, the instruments towards which the Sony invention is directed are either fretboard, fingerboard or button-key instruments, and is not suited to aid the learning of the correct hand position for playing a keyboard instrument, the correct hand position being essentially the same for all positions of the fingers on the keys; that is, for the position of the fingers on all of the different keys.
The present invention aims to provide a keyboard musical instrument learning aid which alleviates problems associated with teaching and learning of correct hand position for playing keyboard musical instruments. Other aims and advantages of the invention may become apparent from the following description.